This week our clues are single letters, cluing phrases that describe their respective letters:

23a. [C] CHESS OPENING. The “opening” of the word chess is the letter C.

37a. [H] HEAD START

39a. [A] ARCTIC FRONT

54a. [R] NERVE CENTER

69a. [A] HEAVY HEART

73a. [C] CULT LEADER

89a. [T] STOLE SECOND

104a. [E] MATTE FINISH

107a. [R] BITTER END

122a. [S] SERIES FINALE

The clued letters in order spell CHARACTERS, which is a nice touch (an accent or a serif, perhaps) to a straightforward theme. STOLE SECOND is a bit of an outlier, as the other entries have the clued letter either in the beginning, center, or end of the phrase.

16a. [Symbol for angular velocity] OMEGA. Started to put THETA, asked hubby. “Theta, right?” “I think so, yeah.” Typed in THETA, even though we knew theta just represented the measure of an angle. Realized [Be short, financially] couldn’t start with T and was probably OWE. “Could it be OMEGA? That doesn’t sound right.” “Nah, not OMEGA.” Left it blank, came back to it. Begrudgingly put in OMEGA. (I’m putting this here because hubby never willingly helps me with crosswords. The occasion must be noted.)

62a. [Temple treasure] IDOL. I thought of Legends of the Hidden Temple immediately. This was an early 90s Nickelodeon game show where kids participated in trivia questions and physical challenges, and the final team standing ran through a temple looking for the day’s treasure. The temple run was nearly impossible: several large rooms involving lots of climbing, temple guards that could kidnap you upon entering the room they guarded, and time-consuming tasks required to unlock the next room. Please enjoy this montage of kids failing bigtime in one such room, the Shrine of the Silver Monkey.

96a. [Fruit salad fruit] PEAR. If you’re lucky. Fruit salads are generally 90% canteloupe and honeydew, and 10% good stuff. You have to get there first to grab some of the yummy bits. More competitive than Legends of the Hidden Temple.

128a. [Part of a hand cultivator] PRONG. These are hand cultivators. I, however, cannot shake the image of someone growing body parts in a garden. This probably means I need to magically catch up on lost sleep.

Until next week!

Jerry Miccolis’s New York Times crossword, “Initial Description”—Amy’s write-up

NY Times crossword solution, 4 2 17, “Initial Description”

The six long theme answers are made-up phrases concocted to describe each clue word, using the clue word’s letters as the phrase’s initials. SWAN is a SWIMMER WITH ARCHED NECK. MARS, MOSTLY ARID RED SPHERE. ATLAS, AID TO LOCATE A STREET (“aid to locate” feels awkward—”aid for locating” sounds more natural). TRIO, THREE ROLLED INTO ONE, meh. OKAY, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS YES. WASP, WINGED AND STINGING PEST, with an awkward “and.” This is a MOSTLY ARID theme, as there’s no humor built into the concept.

Five more things:

20a. [Togalike Roman cloak], ABOLLA. Say what? Good luck to you if you’re newish to crosswords and have not encountered the icky entry 10d ELHI, because that would be a rough crossing.

Least favorite clue: 37d [Nuclear particles, suffixally] -ONS, as in protons and neutrons. There’s a gaggle of other subatomic particles with this suffix, some of which are non-nuclear. Runner-up: the awkwardly phrased 13a [Sailor toon bracer] SPINACH; but I did enjoy the left-shifted PANACHE directly below it at 22a.

John Lampkin’s Los Angeles Times crossword, “All in Favor”—Amy’s write-up

LA Times crossword solution, 4 2 17, “All in Favor”

Okay, I revealed the solution rather than solving this puzzle because I realized midday Monday that I’d neglected to blog it on Sunday. (I blame the bug I’m trying to fight off, and a family event.) The theme answers modify familiar phrases by adding a PRO- prefix to one word.

117a. [Miscreant handling letters?], MAIL-IN REPROBATE. Here, the PRO is inserted inside a word rather than at the front. And anything that is MAIL-IN … well, that doesn’t work with the “handling letters” concept.

16d. [Quality control job at a maraschino factory?], PROBING CHERRIES. Only a couple months away from Bing cherry season!

42d. [Feature of Charlie Brown’s head?], CIRCULAR PROFILE. Cute.

I like this theme better than a lot of add-some-letters themes, as there’s some amusement among the theme answers. The irregularity of dropping PRO inside REBATE in 117a, though, is a minus.

Eyeballing the fill, I’m seeing a ton of clunkers. Four of the first seven Acrosses—TILER BNEG OBIE PARLE—set the stage for the overall feel of the grid.

NYT: I mostly liked the theme: OTHERWISE KNOWN AS YES was clever. Nice to see a word like FRISSON in there, too.

But. I must take issue, Mr. Miccolis, with your description of a WREN as “drab”. No. Not drab. Their plumage ranges from sepia to cinnamon to slightly yellow, with interesting patches of red or black, depending on the wren. Also, they’re adorable, especially the round little Carolina Wren which is outside my house right now. Perhaps not as colorful as a male cardinal, but that doesn’t make them drab.

Whew. Sorry. Anyway. I probably liked the puzzle somewhat more than most.

Thanks for pointing that out. Dunno, I feel like the implementation of a lot of Sunday themers has been way more forced & tortured than this one. Also the theme itself seemed pretty original. Fill could have been better but guess I liked this more than Amy.

I had a hard time parsing ACRONYM (120A “Opening letters?”) even after I had it filled.

The theme is rather clever and original. The fill seemed fairly typical for a Sunday. My experience with it was smooth and enjoyable. I’d give it much higher points than Amy did.

Compared to the many flashy, colorful patterns in other birds, wrens do come off as being a bit drab, but I do understand Lise’s complaint. The nuance of shades and subtle tints in many “drab” birds often go unnoticed.

Evan’s “Character Traits” was a cool puzzle, beautifully crafted to produce the letters spelling CHARACTER, but I agree with Erin that STOLESECOND was an outlier. The T could have been produced in an 11 from OPENTERRAIN or BROUGHTBACK, say.

By the way, several folks from ACPT have emailed me asking for the answer to “The Usual Gang of Idiots” that I put out. The clue to STANDOUT read, “Top-notch, like Al Jaffee of 22 fame (or another descriptor of him that will do this in the circles if you crease from arrow A to arrow B.” You need to fold from the beginning of the arrows that appear above the first row’s circled A to its circled B so that only the first two and last two columns appear. Then you get MAD’S MAINSTAY FOOL remaining from the circled theme material. In retrospect, I should have drawn the arrows so that their pointy ends landed above the A and B. Sorry about that to anyone this may have frustrated.